from the computer you created your WinPE drive on, copy "imagex.exe" to your WinPE drive, by default it is located in %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86

on your ProBook, press F9 during boot and choose to boot from your WinPE drive

in the command prompt execute "c:" followed by "dir", you should see that C: is your empty Windows partition

find the file "HPFactory.wim" on your recovery partition, e.g. "cd e:\system.sav\util", followed by "dir" should reveal the file.

switch to your WinPE drive where "imagex.exe" is saved, e.g. "h:"

execute "imagex.exe /info e:\system.sav\util\HPFactory.wim" to see information about the recovery image

in the long output you should find three image descriptions each with an index <IMAGE INDEX="..."> and a byte size <TOTALBYTES>...</TOTALBYTES>, one of them should be much larger than the other ones, determine its index (mine was "3")

execute "imagex.exe /apply e:\system.sav\util\HPFactory.wim 3 c:\", where 3 is the index from above, and "c:" is your empty Windows partition, your recovery image will be extracted

using F9 during boot, choose to boot from a Windows 7 installation disc

do not install Windows 7 but choose to repair your current Windows installation

the setup should detect your Windows installation on C: and suggest to repair it, click repair and restart

now your Windows installation should boot and start the post-installation process, click your way through

You should end up in a a factory reset installation with all bundled HP applications and drivers installed.

Re: Recovery partition is there but recovery won't start

WOW ! That was a huge effort, I am glad you got it to work after all of that.

It would have been interesting to see if you had chosen the custom option to install W7. With the custom option you could have created a new partition or used an existing one to install W7 on. Leaving the recovery partition in tact with the installation of W7, maybe the recovery partition would have been available in disc management to mark it as active. It would have been unnecessary to install any drivers to make use of disk management.

Chances are this would have not worked, but it would have been interesting to see. I may try it on a spare hard drive when I have some time.

@ everyone else

Leaving the recovery partition in tact is not always enough to restore the HP factory OS, when ever the order of the partitions are changed, deleted, extended etc. this usually corrupts the boot commands to get into the recovery partition.

Before changing things around, burn your HP recovery set with DVD-R or DVD+R, I like to use Sony, but any reputable name will be fine. Do not use generic.

Windows 7 also has a new feature where you can create a "system repair disc" and "create a system image", these are found in the control panel under "Backup and Restore". These two applications work together to restore the computer.

I find that these work even better then the HP recovery method because it puts the hard drive back exactly at the time of creation. This means it will have all your personal items and settings. It pretty much makes the HP partition redundant.

However if you have a virus it will mirror image that too, so it is best to create the mirror image when you know the machine is clean.

Re: Recovery partition is there but recovery won't start

I've tried all the fixes on here, I have even tried to find an HP recovery kit with the UK Best2Serve that want an arm and a leg just to actually talk to them. I also did a search using the part no and it came back negative.

I think I will just have to bite the bullet and destroy the HDD and dump the notebook and right off the £329 I paid for it suffice to say I will never ever buy anything with the HP logo on it ever again because their support is totally rubbish in the UK. As an unemployed nearly OAP I cannot afford to pay crazy money for telephone support to someone that probably won't fix the problem anyway.

Oh and guess what? It's out of warranty so can't get any support.

I found that since applying updates both HP and Microsoft , updating the bios the recovery area has been corrupted so is un-useable and just gives the un-mountable error on the usual blue screen.

Re: Recovery partition is there but recovery won't start

Back up all your data, get a full installation DVD of windows 7. Try downloading from Digitalriver (Legal download links authorised by microsoft) and burn it to a disk or alternativly borrow a disk from a friend. Boot from the disk and open command prompt by clicking on repair my computer after that type all the bootrec commands and try to boot from your recovery partition.

Re: Recovery partition is there but recovery won't start

Thanks so much for the information. I couldn't find my recovery USB I had made. I was trying the Windows 8 beta on my HP mini which originally came with Win 7 Starter. Needless to say Win 8 is not a good experience on the mini.